I used to issue leaflets asking people to enlist as
recruits. One of the arguments I had used was distasteful to the
Commissioner: 'Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India,
history will look back upon the Act depriving the whole nation of arms
as the blackest. If we want the Arms Act to be repealed, if we
want to learn the use of arms, here is a golden opportunity. If
the middle classes render voluntary help to Government in the hour of
its trial, distrust will disappear, and the ban on possessing arms will
be withdrawn.'

This was during World War I. The "Arms Act" to which Gandhi refers was the Indian Arms Act of 1878,
which, through its provisions granting the goverment unlimited
arbitrary power to forbid possession of any and all arms by anyone or
everyone, in practice meant nearly complete disarmament of the
population.

This quotation should not be taken as a denial of Gandhi's lifelong emphasis on the paramount importance of Ahimsa
(avoiding harm). It can however be taken as a clear
statement that denying people the right to possess arms for their own
defense is inconsistent with belief in Ahimsa,
which permits the use of force, even deadly force, in defense of
self or others. And this quotation cannot be taken to show that
Gandhi liked arms or approved of their use -- he would view his
personal feelings on such matters as utterly irrelevant to the question
of whether the government should forbid their possession.

Gandhi's approach for redressing wrongs -- Satyagraha -- was based on
treating people fairly, avoiding demonization, appealing to the
good in mankind, and seeing things from the other person's point of
view. The notion that he believed in "passive resistance" as that
term is used in the U.S. today ("let's go lie down in the road in front
of the power plant and shout epithets at the police and plant guards")
is utter nonsense. Gandhi would call that passive violence.